


My Valentine

by moon_custafer



Category: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Genre: Billy Can't Have the Sharp Scissors, Gen, So Boo Radley Mailed Him a Paper Doll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:44:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_custafer/pseuds/moon_custafer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy was never quite sure exactly what had happened, but all his life Arthur had been a cautionary tale -- the boy whose parents had grounded him forever, and whose brother had carried on the ban after their deaths. Unseen, he nevertheless sent out cards at Christmas and Easter to certain favored relatives; beautiful cards made from magazine cut-outs, but always with a certain strangeness to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Valentine

The patients got mail sometimes. Of course they did. Not all of them. No one wrote much to the chronics. But once a week the acutes would sometime receive envelopes that had been sliced open, checked for contraband, and resealed. Bibbit got letters, and sometimes ornate holiday cards, from his mother. Dutifully, he read each one through once, and then put it away in the decorated box he had made in Art Therapy. One time, though, he got a letter from his first-cousin-once-removed. Well, not a letter exactly.

Billy had never met his cousin, because Arthur had not been permitted to leave the house since that trouble in his youth. He’d been such a clever boy, everyone said, had taken prizes in the school spelling bees before his fragility had shown. Billy was never quite sure exactly what had happened, but all his life Arthur had been a cautionary tale -- the boy whose parents had grounded him forever, and whose brother had carried on the ban after their deaths. Unseen, he nevertheless sent out cards at Christmas and Easter to certain favored relatives; beautiful cards made from magazine cut-outs, but always with a certain strangeness to them. Billy’s mother would tut as she took them from their envelopes, but she could not in good conscience avoid displaying them on the mantel with the more conventional greetings from family.

An angel with albino bat wings and a halo made of three silver sequins; a phalanx of robins armed with tridents facing down a wolf; a city of domes and spires cut from a silverware catalogue and upthrust from a jungle of massive roses. Billy had peered at Arthur’s cards in delighted terror from behind the corner of the overstuffed sofa, feeling somehow as though he were committing a delicious sin in doing so.

And this afternoon an envelope was handed him with his name on the outside in neat handwriting and a hand-colored photograph of a ladybug glued beneath the stamp. He could not bring himself to open it until nightfall; and he turned his back to the dormitory so the others wouldn’t see the contents. 

There were dry daisy petals, from lord only knows what long-ago summer; neatly pressed like old linen, flat like the blades of an ivory fan. There was a clipping of some sort of exotic lily, or perhaps a sea creature -- no, a fossil -- the caption was still attached: “Agaricocrinus americanus.” There was a postcard of the Alps, and, delicately scissored from a magazine page that smelled of old pulp paper, acrid-sweet, a girl with bobbed dark hair, or perhaps a furry hat, and large gentle eyes. Her mouth was a tiny painted heart.

Billy examined each item, hardly daring to breathe on the fragile elements. When he came to the cutout girl, he cupped her in his right hand; she seemed at ease there, and smile back at him. 

“What’re you doing, Billy?!” One of the other men had noticed Billy’s huddled posture. Billy quickly slipped the paper doll into his shirt and hoped she wouldn’t fall straight through.  
“My c-c-c-c-cousin sent me some old p-postcards.”  
“Are they dirty? Lemme see.” Martini snatched the picture of the Alps and his face fell in disappointment. “Aw, it’s just some mountains. It’s not even a new card. Boy, your cousin is cheap.”  
It was Lights Out after that, and Billy curled up in the dark. He reached under his shirt and couldn’t find the paper doll. He tensed and curled more tightly into himself. 

She must be in the bed somewhere, he thought. She’s lost in a wrinkle in the sheets, wandering the woolen hills of the blanket. Don’t move or you’ll crush her. 

He kept very still. Gradually the breathing of the other patients in the dorm turned to snores, or the grunts and twitches of uneasy dreamers.

The moon traveled the sky until it angled sharply through the barred window. Now there was some light. Billy sat up slowly and peeled away the blanket until he could peer at his lap. He patted it timidly, trying not to think that he was touching himself. 

It’s not like that, you’re just trying to find the picture you dropped. 

A picture of a girl. 

His fingers touched paper, and he lifted the doll up carefully, but not carefully enough; his middle finger stung, and he in the moonlight he saw a spot of blood bloom along the edge of her printed back. He traded her to the other hand and licked his finger. The cut was small; invisible but for the blood. Billy had a working knowledge of how quickly cuts and grazes fused. This one would be unnoticeable by morning. Turning the paper girl over he noted with relief that the bloodstain was invisible in the dark ink of her dress. Reaching for the envelope beneath his pillow, he tucked her in.  
“G-g’night,” he whispered, and laid his cheek to the rough, cool linen.


End file.
